September 15, 2016

Dubbed “social eating,” the practice is popular in South Korea... It’s a difficult pastime for people in the U.S. to initially grasp, he acknowledged, but he said it’s gaining traction, along with rising demand for non-gaming content. Disbelief about the growth potential for Twitch, a platform for watching people play video games, has taught him not to discount something he doesn’t personally understand, [said Twitch Chief Executive Officer Emmett Shear].

Here's a video from a couple years ago showing a woman who makes $9,000 setting up a big feast for herself in front of the computer and letting people watch.

It seems to have something to do with comforting people who are out there somewhere eating alone... or who are refraining from eating and substituting eating vicariously.

ADDED: I don't know how related that might be to listening to people eat — for ASMR purposes (Autonomous sensory meridian response) — like this.

23 comments:

Wait, wait wait. The last post was about watching someone eat, and you find another story about watching someone eat - and it's current? It wasn't like you found an old story on the weird South Korean fad.

Preparing and eating food together is the social activity that we social animals Work The Hardest at doing. Eating alone is for a tired traveler in a foreign land and hermits.

You have to love that guy on the Dias at the New York Economic Club sitting behind Trump. He was eating diligently for an hour. If Trump had gotten through in 30 minutes, I bet he would have kept on eating alone in an empty room.

Are the Media Slander Trump artists still repeating the narrative that he eats commoner fast foods so he cannot be as healthy as her Highness .

ASMR, I think, can be triggered by either listening or watching, or both. This Korean thing might be something else but I see some similarities. A lot of ASMR content is just watching people do something or talk about something.

My girlfriend's 4 year old daughter loves to watch youtube videos of kids (and adults) playing with baby dolls. My 13 year old son, along with many other boys, watch people play and comment on video games.

And I've heard that some adults like to watch videos of other adults having sex.

I wrote a short film in college about a man who was a professional eater. Not a Joey Chestnut-type but a guy in competitions judged by panels on how "well" he ate — his manners, his motions, his chewing abilities, etc.

Of course, his personal life was a disaster, and he was involved in a bribing scandal before making the comeback in the story.